Your Impact

Pique Nique Sur La Baie, one of New College’s main fundraising events, will return this spring under a new partnership between New College of Florida and Florida Winefest.

Pique Nique will be Friday, April 6, 2018, under an elegant tent on the south lawn of the Van Wezel Performing Arts Center, overlooking Sarasota Bay. Tickets are available here.

Florida Winefest will now organize and manage Pique Nique, which the New College Foundation had sponsored for 33 years. New College will assist in planning and will be a main beneficiary of the event.

“We know how much Pique Nique is beloved in the community, and we’re delighted to have this partnership with Florida Winefest,” said MaryAnne Young, executive director of the New College Foundation.

"We are pleased and excited to be able to partner with New College and carry on the tradition of Pique Nique. Children of a younger age will also benefit from this collaborative effort,” said Sandy Loevner, a volunteer who serves as Winefest board chair and helps organize the event. Loevner also served on the Pique Nique committee in its early years.

Proceeds from the event will benefit local disadvantaged children’s charities in Sarasota and Manatee counties, which Winefest has supported for the past 28 years. Florida Winefest also will make a $10,000 scholarship donation to New College from the proceeds.

Florida Winefest is a nonprofit that provides funding to qualified charitable organizations for programs that assist disadvantaged children, youth, and families in Sarasota and Manatee counties. It has donated more than $8.4 million to local charities.

The New College Foundation provides the necessary private funding to enable New College to continue providing an outstanding liberal arts and sciences education to high-achieving undergraduates from Florida and elsewhere.